Sen. J.D. Vance (R-OH) wants to offer much-needed wage hikes to American auto workers by replacing President Joe Biden’s Electric Vehicle (EV) mandates with tax credits for gas-powered cars made in the United States at high-wage plants.
Vance’s “Drive American Act” would eliminate more than $100 billion in EV subsidies from the Biden administration and replace them with the “America First Vehicle Credit.”
The credit would provide up to $7,500 in tax credits for American consumers making less than $150,000 who buy a gas-powered car so long as it is made in the U.S. at a plant where auto workers are earning no less than $35 an hour and where the parts are U.S.-sourced.
“Right now, the official policy of the Biden administration is to spend billions of dollars on subsidies for electric vehicles made overseas,” Vance said in a statement:
If we’re subsidizing anything, it ought to be Ohio workers — not the green energy daydreams that are offshoring their jobs to China. We can secure a bright future for American autoworkers by passing this legislation and reversing the misguided policies of the Biden administration. [Emphasis added]
Vance noted that Jeeps made at the Toledo Assembly Complex in Ohio would qualify for the tax credit so long as auto workers at the plant got a significant wage hike.
The plan comes as the United Auto Workers (UAW) strike against General Motors (GM), Ford, and Stellantis as they hope to secure much-needed pay raises to keep up with record inflation and the cost of living, as well as commitments that their jobs will not be eliminated altogether as a result of Biden’s EV mandates.
Members of the United Auto Workers (UAW) picket outside of the Michigan Parts Assembly Plant in Wayne, Michigan amid rumors that US President Joe Biden may stop by during his visit to Michigan to stand on the picket lines with UAW workers in Detroit, Michigan on September 26, 2023. (MATTHEW HATCHER/AFP via Getty Images)
Striking United Auto Workers (UAW) march in front of the Stellantis Mopar facility on September 26, 2023 in Ontario, California. (Gina Ferazzi/Los Angeles Times via Getty Images)
Vance is among only a few Republicans, alongside Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO) and former President Donald Trump, to defend auto workers against the Biden administration’s green energy agenda that threatens to offshore their jobs to China, which controls much of the EV supply chain.
“What proponents of this premature push to electric vehicles fail to appreciate is how much their agenda decreases the bargaining power of Ohio auto workers,” Vance wrote in a recent op-ed. “The more the Big Three’s business model relies on global supply chains and non-union labor, the less the UAW can effectively push for higher wages.”
Most prominently, the UAW has balked at Biden’s green agenda for showering auto companies with potentially billions in tax credits while auto workers’ wages are slashed and jobs are cut because EVs require far fewer workers — spurring concerns that such a transition, funded by the federal government, will spell the elimination of millions of American auto jobs.
John Binder is a reporter for Breitbart News. Email him at [email protected]. Follow him on Twitter here.
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